Buryak leads the way at indoor rowing’s CRASH-B’s

15 February 2017

Coming out of the blizzard and into the Agganis Arena in Boston, United States, this year’s CRASH-B Indoor Rowing Championship competitors were greeted by nearly 100 indoor rowing machines for racing and nearly as many warm-up machines.

This may be an ominous sight for the feint-hearted, but it did not stop over 2000 athletes from around the world from coming to race hard with the hope of winning an iconic hammer.

Olena Buryak of Ukraine is the fastest woman in the world on the indoor rowing machine after setting the World Record two years ago. Buryak won the open women’s category finishing the 2000m race in a time of 6:33. Buryak admitted she was not feeling her best going into the race but when Australia’s Georgie Rowe took the lead, Buryak gave it her all to get out in front. Rowe finished second and Olympian Jose van Veen of the Netherlands was third.

The men’s open category had Poland’s Bartosz Zablocki catch and overtake regular CRASH-B competitor Pavel Shurmei of Belarus. Zablocki finished in a time of 5:45.8. Shurmei’s time of 5:47.8 not only earned him second place, but also was a new World Record for the 40-49 year old men’s age group. The international line up continued with Cuba’s Angel Fournier Rodriguez finishing third, Greg Davis of the United States in fourth and New Zealander George Bridgewater in fifth.

Overall 12 women went under seven minutes for the 2000m race and 14 men went under six minutes.

The largest number of entries was in the junior women’s heavyweight category with 282. The age groups went through to 90+ years old. The oldest male competitor was Dean Smith, 94, in the 90-94 year lightweight race and on the women’s side Dorothy Stewart raced in the 95-99 lightweight category. Stewart is 95 years old.

Along with 26 different para-rowing categories, this was the first year of the inclusion relay, which included one able bodied and one para competitor. The inaugural event was won by Kyle Peabody and J. Heberlein.

For a full list of results: https://herenow.com/results/#/races/20330/ergresults